Faithful are the wounds of a friend...

I had someone use that phrase when speaking with me the other day.

My first thought?

In the middle of a difficult conversation, throwing a Bible verse at someone is playing dirty - because how in the world can you argue with God's inspired words, especially when your whole life has been built around trying to integrate it's truth into every aspect of your life?

So due to the context, the comment was not at all appreciated.

And as a parent... as well as one who works in a Christian school with children who misbehave,...a lot... that is something I need to remember.

I also trust God that "criticism," whether offered 

contructively out of love 

or 

vengefully with a desire to hurt in retaliation, 

gives the Spirit of God opportunity to hold up a mirror where I can look long and hard to see if the criticism, or at least certain aspects, was merited.

So I'm sitting with these words for a bit, even though it also means cutting the wound a little deeper.

Interpreting and applying a proverb

According to the Bible Project, in one of their videos about the book of Proverbs: "... the purpose of this book is to help you develop a set of practical skills for living well in God's world and this gets linked with another key idea...; the fear of the Lord. Now fear here is not about terror. It's about a healthy sense of reverence and awe for God and about my place in the universe. It's a moral mindset that recognizes that I am not God and that I don't get to make up my own definitions of good and evil, of right and wrong. Rather I need to humble myself before God and embrace God's definition of right and wrong, even when that's inconvenient for me." (beginning at 1:44 in the video)

A quick search reveals all sorts of strategies for studying this book of short, pithy sayings. However, since the distinguishing fact of a proverb is its succintness, there are also a few cautions to keep in mind. Thus a proverb should generally not be considered an absolute truth or promise. Additionally, because some proverbs describe the reality of life in a fallen world, description or inclusion is not the same as a comprehensive rubber stamp.

In other words, the wounds of a friend are generally faithful, but do not assume that is always the case... unless, of course, the friend in question is God. 

Rereading the beginning verses of Proverbs 27 today, the image that keeps coming to mind is from last year's Easter program:

Adam and Eve choosing the kisses of the serpent instead of heeding the words of God. 

I wonder if, in their minds, those words seemed hard, restrictive and unfair, even though they had come from a friend - their God who walked and talked with them, from the beginning, in the garden? 

As a consequence, God then pronounced words even more wounding, the curse of sin on all mankind. 

Thankfully, he then followed with words of promise, planting a seed of hope that blossomed into fullfillment with the empty tomb. 

From the beginning of time, the wounds of the only perfect friend prove faithful, while the kisses of the eternal enemy bring catastrophy. 

Voila ~  the truth on which this proverb is based.

However, no mere human  is a perfect friend.

Three key words: wounds... friend... faithful...

Wounds

In the original language, wound refers to a bruise, or what happens when a part of the body is injured and blood from the damaged capillaries (small blood vessels) leaks out. With no place to go, the blood gets trapped under the skin, forming a red or purplish mark that's tender when you touch it. It is the result of an act that crushes or batters.

Friend

Today, friend has all sorts of meanings, including those listed as designated connections on social media. Clearly, that is not what this proverb is getting at. 

Friend, in the original Hebrew language, refers to someone who loves or is loved. There really isn't a whole lot more detail. In fact, this particular Hebrew word used for love can refer to love in any or all of its possible manifestations. 

What several of the commentators I read said was that it was more telling to look at what love was not. In particular, love is the opposite of hate. 

Most dictionaries define hate as a very strong feeling of dislike; an intense hostility. The ancient Hebrew prioritizes a very different nuance. “Sane’ ” (saw-nay’), often translated as hate, is, in pictograph letters, “thorn seed.” According to Jeff Benner in The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible "The thorn, (the seed of a plant with small sharp points) cause one to turn directions to avoid them.” In other words, not allowing love. Hate means putting up walls, a hedge of protection, to avoid pain. This image makes me think of the Michael Card song Why?

Only a friend can betray a friend

A stranger has nothing to gain

And only a friend comes close enough

To ever cause so much pain

Faithful

Pillars of support, stable, nourishing, established and sure...

Putting it all together ~ 

Sure and stable, supporting, nourishing and buttressing are those tender to the touch contusions that result from crushing and battering when inflicted by someone who loves you, sees you for who you are and is working for your very best. 

Photo credit : Unsplash by Robert Linder

So what's my conclusion?

Ouch!

Can I trust the "friend" who has recently wounded me? I really don't know. 

We humans are so fallible, so prone to wander, so likely to sin and seek vengeance, so arrogant and sure that our own way has the holy stamp of approval. Thus, that question is impossible for me to answer.

However, I can trust my divine friend. 

We often pray for deliverance from hard things - the things that cause us pain. God, however, is more interested in delivering us from our sinful selves than He is in stopping the pain of a wound becoming a tool of redemption in His faithful, capable hands. 

Can't remember the last time I so looked forward to summer

When I was a kid, I remember my dad (well, at least I think it was him) sing-song saying, as summer vacation started, "School's out, school's out, someone's let the fools out!"

He couldn't be more right and I will gladly accept the title of "fool" this year, for what a year it was. As I wrote back in December, I've never felt more unequipped, unqualified and under stress in a job than this past year. 

After December, it didn't really get better either. I am pretty sure I don't like this leadership gig. When we left Africa, I somehow thought cross-cultural ministry in a more western culture would be easier. It isn't. I've never felt more like an outsider than this past year.

But I'm also stubborn, don't like to give up, and most importantly, I don't think God has asked me to move on, at least not yet.

Last Sunday, the sermon focused on Jesus' interaction with the man with leprosy found in Luke 5. 

While He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered with leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” And He reached out with His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And immediately the leprosy left him.

I've read these verses many times. Hearing them read aloud, in French, I noticed something I had never noticed before. In French, the word, or expression, used by the leper was "make me pure." I immediately thought, "Hmmmmm... interesting... I wonder why he requested purity and not healing?" Same thought could have crossed my mind in English, "Why did the leper ask to be cleaned instead of healed?"

I know all about the image of leprosy representing impurity, or uncleanliness, in the eyes of God. As a result, those sick with the disease were forced to live outside the camp, crying out "Unclean!" any time they were in proximity of others. I don't understand why God chose this image and why those sick with the disease were forced to live with this burden of exclusion and rejection by society and his people. If I am being honest, it is one of those things that has always bothered me and doesn't fit with the image of God I want to be able to tuck in my back pocket and carry around with me.  Since I can't create God in my image, however, I'm stuck wrestling with this incomprehension and tension. So, all of that to say, I do understand the use of the word clean in the leper's request, but...

For those of us reading the biblical text in this day and age, without that same background connotations and with only the knowledge that leprosy is disease, I think the use of the word clean is perfect and perfectly fascinating. 

Back to the leper - he falls on his face and begging, praying, that the Lord would be willing to cleanse him...

I immediately thought of long moments over this past school year, on my face before the Lord, tearfully imploring him to...

• fix things,
• make it all go away or at least go a bit more smoothly,
• show me what I could do to do to fix things,
• send us to a different mission field,
• just let me teach English with business people,
• give me at least a little energy to face another day,
• comfort me with his presence because this season was so, so lonely,
• help me to walk the halls of the school and actually continue doing the job,
• and a million other things essentially along those same lines.

Many of those prayers? Well, he promises he hears them. 

In retrospect, I can see how others he faithfully answered... on repeat. 

They were the prayers like the leper's prayer, even though I never, ever prefaced my prayers as that man did - stating my confident knowledge of his absolute power to grant any request while humbly acknowledging that THAT wouldn't happen... 

...unless God was willing.

Ever wonder what prayers God is willing to answer?

The ones that are prayed according to his will, and not just a "may Thy will be done" in closing. 

It is the prayers that reflect the character of God and his image within me, that bring honor and glory to his name, that permit his truth and light to shine, that point any watching eyes (including my own) in his direction.

Two answers to prayer, directing my eyes and heart to seek refuge in God and God alone, are two songs literally breathing just enough courage into my wary weariness that I can continue another day. They have been earworms (as my kids say), stuck in my head, and I am so thankful.

The first is Lauren Daigle's Thank God I Do. Read the lyrics : 

I've seen love come and

I've seen love walk away

So many questions

Will anybody stay?

It's been a hard year

So many nights in tears

All of the darkness

Trying to fight my fears

Alone, so long alone

I don't know who I'd be if I didn't know You

I'd probably fall off the edge

I don't know where I'd go if You ever let go

So keep me held in Your hands

I've started breathing

The weight is lifted here

With You, it's easy

My head is finally clear

There's nothing missing

When You are by my side

I took the long road

But now I realize

I'm home with You, I'm home

I don't know who I'd be if I didn't know You

I'd probably fall off the edge

I don't know where I'd go if You ever let go

So keep me held in Your hands

You're my safe place

My hideaway

You're my anchor

My saving grace

You're my constant

My steadiness

You're my shelter

My oxygen

I don't know who I'd be if I didn't know You

Thank God, I do

The second song was written by my daughter for a school assignment. She had to compose the music, write the words and put the whole thing together, recording it for her class.  When she played the final version for me on our way in to school the morning it was due, I bawled (I know... not the most conducive for safe driving.).

I don't have her permission to share the recording of her song, but these words:

Home is not a place

It's the people you're with

The place I feel safe

Because you're who I'm with...

Home's never a place

It's who we are

The place we feel safe

Because you're who I'm with.

Her song is the cry of a Third Culture Kid's heart, but it has also been the cry of her cross cultural worker-mama's heart, realizing all over again that the only safe space, the only home, is near to the heart of God because that is who He is. As I work in the garden, fold laundry, or just sit and stare out the window at the river and the sunset, these words run through my head, healing my heart.

Summer, a season for growth and rest, 

an answer to prayer.

I don't write much any more...

 

Don't write much these days.

I hardly have time to breathe.

Elle me manque beaucoup.

I truly do think with my fingers, processing life as I write about what is happening, what I'm mulling over in my mind. 

So much has happened since I last visited this space :

• One has changed jobs, at least twice.
• One has traveled to South Korea, learned to speak the language, and then come back home to us.
• Two have graduated from university... another from high school.
• One has gotten engaged and will be married in a few months.
• One has taken a pause from post secondary studies to work full time.
• One has chosen on-line school to move more rapidly through the program and plans a year of Bible school.
• Two have new drivers' permits.
• One has started her driver's training classes and another should be before too long.
• One has started post-secondary studies and is nailing it.
• Two are coaching basketball.
• One is playing volleyball.
• Two are playing basketball.
• One is now a basketball ref.
• One has given up coloring her hair. Six others are game to try all sorts of interesting colors.
• Two will soon be gaining another "son"-in-love. We need more male hormones around this place.
• Ten (+ one more too), love being together and treasure those times more than ever because they are fewer and farther between than we'd like.
• One has almost forgotten how to type English on an English keyboard because she is so used to typing English on a French keyboard.

• Two have celebrated 28 years together and have been gifted eight amazing kids who are seeking to love God and love people in the best ways they know how and even if it isn't what I imagined it would look like.

No, I didn't even try to do a Twelvish Days of Christmas thing. That would have required too much thinking. 

We are living in our new home. I'm still pinching myself to make sure it isn't a dream. 

After over 30 moves in 28 years, the idea of not moving again is nothing less than lusciously delightful. It actually prompted me to pull out my diplomas and certificates and actually hang them on the wall in my office at school. If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you know how breathtakingly lovely our new-to-us space is. The kids have all been betting on when I will stop posting pictures. I hope I never do because this house, this space, is a gift from a gracious God whose good gifts, ones we could never merit, abound. We want to share this gift with others. I like to say, "The door's always open, except when it's not!" so if you are heading our way, let us know and we'll make sure you have the code!

Professionally... in ministry... the past few years have been hard. The pandemic. Forced distance from family. Becoming a principal. Deteriorating "societal" mental health. Multitudes choosing anger and self over civility, kindness and others. Me, myself and I forgetting frequently what it means to choose gentle and grateful, always and regardless of circumstances.

I wasn't looking to become a principal. It wasn't even on my top 100 list of maybe someday I might be interested in possibly trying this. It was nowhere close to even being on the radar. 

I know how to be a special educator and figure out tricks to help kids learn both academic and social skills. 

I know how to be a mom, partnering with my husband to lead a family. 

I've learned (got the scars to prove the learning curve) how to be a missionary, surviving and sometimes thriving in a foreign culture and language and trying to point people towards Jesus while accepting the cost of that choice... for me as well as for those I love. 

Being a principal? I am...

Clueless. Yet intelligent answers are expected.

Confused. Yet that I've figured out the babble in my second language while living in my fifth majorly different culture is automatically assumed.

A casualty of chaos. Never time to stop running. A closed door is simply an invitation to interrupt with a frantic knock. Yet mountains of paperwork must be completed on time. Well-thought, carefully crafted strategy and future plans are required. 

Cuffed, regularly, by capriciousness. Sometimes I think I am appreciated. Occasionally, I even feel welcomed. Yet what others seem mostly to want is a listening followed by doing what they ask without offering my opinion or questioning. Then, when the criticism starts flying, my smiling grateful acceptance is due.

Compromised. In an atmosphere where it only counts as listening when I do what the other wants, yes, respecting my conscience is continuously challenged.

Cross, way too often. Repeated failure and the inability to meet expectations takes an immense toll on this perfectionist pleaser. Yet calm must always be projected. 

I can't say I love what I do. Many days, I can't honestly say I even like what I do.

I don't know how to do this job. I think the current "vogue" term is "imposter's syndrome." 

I am the blind person being told to lead others who are confident of their impeccable 20-20 vision.

I hope, and pray that God is creating something that will honor his name and point to his glory because I am currently, confidently convinced that I cannot.

Maybe, that isn't such a bad place to be.

Pray without ceasing

Inhale, exhale, breathe.

Mon Dieu me soutient.

The cost of choosing choice

According to at least a couple of sources I found, the word "count" appears in the Bible 105 times.

Here are few examples...

• Genesis 13:  "...if anyone could count the dust of the earth, then your offspring could be counted."
• Numbers 12: "...Oh, my lord, please don't count this sin against us, in which we have done foolishly, and in which we have sinned."
• 1 Chronicles 21: "David said to God, 'Wasn’t I the one who gave the order to count the people? I am the one who has sinned and acted very wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? My Lord God, please let Your hand be against me and against my father’s family, but don’t let the plague be against Your people.' "
• Job 13: "Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?"
• Psalm 40: "Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count."
• Luke 1: “For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave; For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed."
• Luke 14: "For who of you, willing to build a tower, doth not first, having sat down, count the expense, whether he have the things for completing?"
• Philippians 3: "...I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.... Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Count. It is a verb, an action word.

Sometimes, it was an action commanded by God allowing us to see the infinite benefit and inestimable bounty found in him - trusting him and forsaking all to follow him. 

Other times it was an action prohibited by God, particularly because that action would lead to pride, self-sufficiency and idolatry.

But it always includes a reckoning, a computation or estimation identifying and demonstrating the value we place upon something.

In Jesus' discourse (Luke 14),  this verb referred specifically to determining a value, a cost, that his followers had to decide whether or not they were willing to pay.

It was never a question of if such a decision would cost. 

Regardless of the decision, there would be a cost. 

That was a given. 

The question was which one those those listening were willing to pay.

When we chose missionary life, we knew there would be a cost to pay. Sometimes, the cost has seemed so nonexistent that momentary benefits far outweighed any expense. Other times, that cost has been far steeper than we ever imagined having to pay, leading to consequences that 1) we didn't choose and 2) we never desired.

More than anything else, it has reinforced the value of the ministry we have been gifted.

Today, I watched a documentary on Rick Rescorla, the director of security for Morgan Stanley, a financial securities firm housed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 2001. Rescorla recognized the possibility of terrorist attacks on such symbolic buildings, and insisted on evacuation drills which, when were implemented on September 11 and probably saved over 3000 lives. Not his own, however. Rescorla counted the cost, re-entering the building (while speaking on the phone with his wife) to do a final sweep, just prior to the building's collapse.  

In light of our world's current events, I've been asking myself how it is that people want to be able to make a choice, theoretically after having weighed all the information and counted the cost, but then scream and fuss when faced with the results of their choice? 

Why are they not willing to live the consequences inherent to their decision? 

The consequences might stink; they may seem discriminating, frustrating, unfair, detestable, abhorrent... but they shouldn't be surprising.

People want to decide, and in our society, they currently have that freedom. But that doesn't seem to be all that is desired. People want the freedom to choose without any cost.

If the choice really was that important, that essential, that precious... the cost should be willingly and readily paid.   

Emptiness and Well-being

 Do you remember the moment the COVID pandemic became real to you? 

I do.

Juniors and seniors at the school where I work were preparing for their trip to Washington DC. It was Tori's senior year and I had been invited to accompany the group. Tim and I had just returned from a trip to the National Broadcasters Convention (in Nashville) and it was clear that the virus was worrying people. I figured the kids' trip would be canceled... in fact I was hoping it would be. 

It wasn't. We went to DC as planned, swinging through Hershey and Amish country on the way back north, but with the border threatening to close and the strong recommendation for all residents of Canada to return immediately and observe a strict 14 quarantine, the trip was cut short. 

THAT was the moment I realized life as we knew it had changed, at least for the immediate future. A year later, that still appears to be the case.

The day after our return to Quebec City, schools closed, eventually transitioning to online education. Mid-May, primary schools reopened giving families of elementary students the choice of sending their kids back to school following strict health and security protocols or continuing online education from home. 

Test positivity rates, case counts, hospitalizations and mortality decreased and over the summer, life seemed almost... normal. We met outdoors in a park for church and explored the north coast of the St. Lawrence River and Gulf, camping a stone's throw away from Point des Monts Lighthouse. While it was a lovely break, we were, unfortunately, unable to cross the border to see our family in Michigan. 

A new school year started with a whole host of required rules, regulations and protocols to try and protect both staffs and students from the spread of COVID as kids and personnel returned to school, masked and in stable class groups, typically referred to as a "bubble." This, of course, meant limited extracurricular options such as basketball and band. Thankfully, our school experienced only a few confirmed cases of COVID necessitating the involvement of public health authorities. This typically meant a class would switch to distance learning for a two week period, and this happened with Mary's class once. 

Post-secondary education remained mostly online. Once case counts started rapidly rising last fall, the three upper grades (including Jon's class) began alternating days : one day at school with the following one on line, thus reducing the number of older students in the building at a given time. On either side of the Christmas holiday, the entire school had a few days of distance learning, taking advantage of the holiday to create a "quarantine," with the goal of flattening the curve.

In January, an 8 p.m. curfew was instituted. As the one year anniversary of the first confinement approached, the situation seemed to maybe be improving. Certain sections began reopening over Spring Break, curfew was moved back to a bit later in the evening and plans to return the upper secondary to school 100% of the time started being discussed. 

Then cases of COVID variants arrived, first popping up but then snowballing, even as spring was arriving). We had been planning for our the return of our entire student body to in presence learning, at school, for the first time since back in October, after the Easter holiday. Thursday before Easter, the government announce another tightening of health and security measures. Instead of everyone finally at school, everyone would be distance learning, for at least that first week.

That first week has been prolonged on a week by week basis since. As I type, the hope is that May 3, students will return to school, although at the last press conference, the prime minister made it clear that the first priority was the elementary kids. About a month in to this most recent confinement (that is the word used in French), it feels a bit like a reboot of what happened last year. 

And, as I talk with some of my colleagues, that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, a symbol of hope and the need to persevere just  bit longer, now seems to have transformed into a fantastic, mythological creature that we talk about, but don't really think it exists.

In all reality, I can't personally complain (except for the current impossibility to travel back to Michigan). I am a hermit living in a family of hermits who all enjoy hermit-ing together. My kids miss their friends, but that is part and parcel of  missionary kid's life, so it isn't weird. They are used to maintaining relationships at a distance. In all reality, we are making the most of this treasure of time as as family, time that our busy preCOVID world and culture no longer seemed to prioritize. 

I know, however, that is not the case for many others.  Many are feeling empty, nothing left in the tank to give and still no end in sight. Even the idea of vaccination is tricky, at least as I listen to conversations here because the vaccine doesn't mean the masking, the distancing, the disinfecting, the whole kit and kaboodle... will necessarily stop. Distance teaching when you are responsible to manage the distance learning of your children at the same time is challenging... at best. Participating in planting a church that can only meet "on-line" is uncharted territory. 

I was reading the other morning in 2 Kings 4, the story of the widow who had emptied every possible resource and then realized that the only thing left was to sell her children into slavery. In desperation, she goes to the prophet of Elijah who asks her what remains. Her reply? "A small flask of oil." What he tells her doesn't make sense : "Collect a whole bunch of empty pots and dump that oil into them," which she could then sell to pay her debts and care for her family.

God loves. The Bible is full of stories where He gives worth to what is valueless, frees what is imprisoned, restores what is desolate and abandoned, breathes life to what is barren...

This story touched me because another thing God does is that He longs to fill with abundance what life, what this world, what sin, has emptied. 

Before leaving Niger, I taught through the first part of the book of John to the ladies' group at our church. Just a cursory recall of  that study, I see example after example of this: 

• The wedding in Cana where servants fill empty pots with water, which Jesus changes into wine.
• The Samaritan women came to the well to fill her bucket with water, but left filled with the living Water.
• 5000 plus hungry bellies filled with fish and bread.
• Blind eyes now filled with sight thanks to muddy spittle grace.

And that is just off the top of my head. I could keep on going.

God longs to take what has been emptied and fill it, with himself... 

As an assistant principal at the school, I see lots of official paperwork and a huge concern the Ministry of Education as well as the government is the importance of student and personnel well-being. There is tons of research suggesting that in this present reality, critical factors include :  

• interacting with students and colleagues focusing on authentic care and kindness, 
• prioritizing collaboration and compromise, 
• focusing less on actual academics and more on learning processes, self-discipline and healthy lifestyle choices,
• building a sense of competency and personal responsibility in learning, and
• actually making a difference.

We want to promote well-being.

Yet,

as a follower of Jesus, I know that in this beautifully broken world, trapped in a pandemic and totally emptied by sin,

the only way to truly be well 

is to continually invite God to fill all those empty places.